July 2016 – Journeying Into Mystery

Knocking on heaven’s door – a homily for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

(Jesus teaching in the synagogue. Woodcut by Gustave Dore)

The Our Father is a prayer that is central to Christianity and over the centuries much was been said, preached, and written about this perfect prayer. What I would like to focus on today are the words in the words in the gospel in which Jesus says, “ask and your will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be open to you.”

During my diaconal formation, I spent 5 hours every Wednesday for 9 months as a chaplain in a Twin City hospital of 400 beds. I remember visiting a very elderly man one night. He was despondent and very angry. I knew the visit was going to be short. Before I left the room, I asked him if he wanted to pray. He glared at me and responded with a very emphatic, “Hell, no!” I asked him if it was okay for me to pray for him. His reply to me was, “Do whatever you want, it won’t do any good!” Respecting his wishes, I left the room and later that night prayed for him. At one time or another in our lives, all of us have harbored similar sentiments as that elderly man.

Yet, Jesus tells us in today’s gospel, “ask and you will receive, seek and you will find.” It’s not that I don’t believe Jesus, but my experience has been that for which I asked God I did not receive, and that for which I asked God to seek has not been found. If that is your experience in life too, know that even Jesus did not always get his prayers answered. In the passion accounts of both Mark and Matthew’s gospels, Jesus prays in desperation to God the Father that the cup of his passion and death be taken from him. God remains silent. It is only in Luke’s Passion that God sends an angel to comfort Jesus. However, Jesus still dies in agony. When Jesus cries out from the cross, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” again, God remains silent. Is our God capricious, mean-spirited, temperamental and unfeeling? The answer to this question is an emphatic no. I think some of the problem we have in experiencing prayers not being answered is how we think about prayer.

Prayer is not meant to manipulate God into doing something for us. That is how the pagan religions thought prayer worked. You do something, you sacrifice something or someone, and that forces the gods to do something for you. I see some of this on Facebook. The post will say, if you respond to the post by typing “Amen” in the commentary, God will do a miracle for you. Really? Typing Amen to a Facebook post will force God to do something? That is plain nonsense. That is not the way prayer works.

Prayer is not superstitious magic. Saying a certain prayer, a certain number of times, on certain days will not manipulate God to give us what we want. I remember visiting a young man in the hospital. Though baptized a Catholic, he hadn’t been to church for a long time. He had a rosary dangling from around his neck like a necklace and felt optimistic about his health outcome because he had “the beads.” When I visited him again a couple of weeks later, he was angry because “the beads” were not working. He thought that by just wearing the beads around his neck like some magic talisman, he would be cured of his illness. I took the beads from around his neck, placed them in his hands and showed him how to pray the rosary.

When we pray to God we must discern carefully that for which we are asking of God. Jesus asks his disciples this question today. “What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg?” When we pray to God for some need, if God perceives that for which we are asking is really a snake instead of a fish, God will not give us what we want. If God perceives that for which we are really asking is a scorpion instead of an egg, God will not give us what we want. Like any good parent, God will give to us only that which is best for us, that which will help fulfill who we really are as children of God. This requires us to do a serious assessment of what we truly need to become the person God created us to be.

This is why the most important part of today’s Gospel is the ending. Jesus concludes today’s gospel saying, “If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” What Jesus is saying that of all for which we pray to God, the most important prayer we can ask of God is to give us the Holy Spirit, so that we are able to discern, to know that for which we truly need from God.

Back in 2011, when I had my first hip replacement, I prayed to God for a successful surgery with no complications. I ended up with a MRSA infection, almost dying from the antibiotic that was suppose to kill the infection, losing the artificial hip, and going for six months without a left hip while the infectious disease doctor tried to discover the right combination of antibiotics that would kill the infection without killing me, went through a total of five surgeries before I finally had the second hip replacement. During that nightmarish time, while I prayed for a cure, that for which I really ended up praying was for understanding, the answer to the question, “where is the grace in all of this.” You see, when Jesus asked God to take the chalice of his passion death from him, he concluded the prayer with, “Not my will but your will be done.” I prayed to God in order to understand what God wanted me to learn from my experience. The infection was eventually killed. I ended up getting a new hip. However, my prayer for understanding? God has answered that prayer many times since. Five years later, I continue to grow from the answers I am still receiving.

My friends, may we always begin our prayers of need to God by praying first for the Holy Spirit to help us know that for which we really need, and then pray for that need. If we do that, then we will ask and will receive. We will seek and we will find. And, any door we knock upon will be opened up for us.

Looking for fun and feelin’ groovy: a homily for the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

http://www.pitts.emory.edu/dia/detail.cfm?ID=17236 The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments, according to the authorised version. Author: Doré, Gustave, 1832-1883 Image Title: Jesus at the House of Martha and Mary Scripture Reference: Luke 10 Description: Martha tells Jesus to have Mary help her, as Mary sits at Jesus' feet. — Jesus Visits Mary and Martha, a woodcut illustration by Gustave Dore

There is an old Simon and Garfunkel song from the 60’s that went, “Slow down, you move too fast. Gotta make the mornin’ last, just tripping down the cobble stones, lookin’ for fun and feelin’ groovy.”

I am reminded of that song whenever I read this gospel. We all know the Mary and Martha’s in our lives. Who are the Mary’s who emulate the lyrics of this song? Who are the Martha’s who are the antithesis of this song? Those who know my mother would recognize her as a Martha. Mom can be obsessively compulsive about cleaning. As my father once observed, we had the cleanest dirt in town. My mother takes great pride in keeping a clean and orderly house. Now on the other hand, Ruthie’s mom has had a different approach to housecleaning best expressed by her mother’s words, “If you don’t like the way my house looks, take off your glasses!”

As a rule, we as Americans are pretty obsessed about working. We are duped into thinking that our self-worth is linked only to our ability to work. We can be so obsessive about working that we cheat time with our families and we cheat vacation to work even more. There was a romantic comedy a number of years ago, in which an American woman is having lunch with an Italian man. At one point in their meal together, she looks at her watch and tells the man that the time she allotted for lunch was over and she needed to get back to work. The man looks at her and says wisely, “this is the difference between we Italians and you Americans. In Italy, we work so that we can live. In America, you live so that you can work.”

In today’s gospel, Jesus is emphasizing to Martha and to all of us to slow down and allow time for God in our very busy day. God does not impose his presence upon us. Having free will, it is only we who have the power to allow God, time in our day. How much time do we allow God during our busy day?

This is the key point about the commandment of keeping holy the Sabbath. Coming to synagogue or church on the Sabbath is not about God needing our prayers and worship to feel good. As Jesus pointed out to the Pharisees, the Sabbath was made for us. The Sabbath is to be OUR day of rest.

Rabbi Harold Kushner in a book on Psalm 23, relates a story from the 19^th century, when a British group of men hired African porters to carry their supplies into the jungle on a Safari. The group walked for 6 days in the jungle, and on the 7^th day the porters refused to move. When one of the British men asked why, the leader of the porters replied that they had been traveling for 6 days, and needed 1 day for their souls to catch up with them.

This poses a question for us. How often throughout the week do we allow our souls to catch up with us?

Are we so obsessively busy with all the activities in our lives that we ignore or completely forget about the God who created us? Do we only allot one hour a week to the God who created us, who loved us into existence, and sent his Son to teach us and then die and rise from the dead for us? In the 168 hours we have in each week, for some people is even this one hour in all of those hours too much time to spend with God?

Jesus urges us to put the important areas of our lives into perspective and then order our lives accordingly. Our relationship with God must always be first, immediately followed by our relationship with our families and friends. When we do this, everything else, including our work will fall into its proper place. It does not have to be an either/or choice, but think of it as a choice of “with.” In other words, we can be very busy but at the same time be very much aware of God’s presence in the moment. However, we must make sure that we set aside time every day to be exclusively alone with God.

In all of her busyness, my mother never neglected her time with those of us in my family, and she always set aside time daily to be exclusively with God. Mom has always known how to order that which is most important in her life. However, if we find our lives so compulsively busy that we can’t fit God into our daily living, then let us take my mother-in-law’s words about housework to heart and apply them to our busy lives. There are times when we must simply “take off our glasses” and drop the busyness of our lives, so that we can spend time with God, making God first in our lives.

For all victims of gun violence

(Painting: Massacre of the Holy Innocents in Bethlehem, artist: Matteo di Giovanni.)

PSALM OFFERING 1 OPUS 7

This music written in long stretches from Friday, July 8 to Sunday night July 10, is in memory of ALL victims of gun violence. It is my supplication to God to change the hearts of stone into hearts of flesh of specifically those who willingly profit in the gun industry, those who choose violence instead of civil discourse, those who worship at the altar of weapons. This is my supplication to God for all who are maimed and murdered by guns every day. This is my supplication to God for all mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children and friends whose hearts have been crushed by the cruel acts of violence against their loved ones. In Isaiah, chapter two, we hear the prophet speak of turning spears into pruning hooks, and swords into plowshares. I believe that the metal and components that make up guns is not even worthy of being turned into agricultural implements. Rather, all materials that make a gun must be melted into a molten mass never to be used for any other purpose than to be buried into the earth.

ABOUT THE MUSIC: The sharp dissonant chords, heavily accented that assail the ears like gunshot, the rapid staccato passages like automatic gun fire, the sostenuto pedal blurring all these sounds into an almost undiscernible noise marks section A of this music. I was thinking of a poem by Denise Levertov, entitled “On A Theme From Julian’s Chapter XX” in which the poet is describing the death of Jesus on the cross.

“One only is ‘King of Grief’.

The onening, she saw, the onening

with the Godhead opened Him utterly

to the pain of all minds, all bodies

sands of the sea, of the desert –

from first beginning

to last day. The great wonder is

that the human cells of His flesh and bone

didn’t explode

when utmost Imagination rose

in that flood of knowledge. Unique

in agony, infinite strength, Incarnate,

empowered Him to endure

inside of history,

through those hours when He took Himself

the sum total of anguish and drank

The second melody, B, is the lament of those who have been crushed by the death of their loved ones by gun fire. The Italian word Lacrimosa literally means to sob. It is derived from the Feast of Our Lady Of Sorrows, the mother of Jesus, as she watched him die on the cross. The minor key expresses the sorrow, the descending passages of melody are the tears that flow. The scripture passage that ran through my mind as I composed this is the quote we hear from Matthew’s gospel on the Feast of the Holy Innocents. Matthew quotes a passage from Jeremiah:

“A voice was heard in Ramah,

sobbing and loud lamentation;

Rachel weeping for her children,

and she would not be consoled,

since they were no more.”

As the lamentation of melody B ends, the violent chords of A return, the two sections battling back and forth in change of meter, change of tempo, as more are killed and more lament until the lament drowns out the deafening sound of the gun fire and predominates to the end of the piece, slowly reducing in sound as sobs gradually slowly soften. The music ends ominously as the final two chords of violence very quietly reenter at the end.

Since the time the laws of our land that regulated the legal ownership of guns were eviscerated by legislators who prostituted themselves to the gun lobby and the gun manufacturers, the deaths by guns has only escalated. It is a horrific litany: Columbine, Sandy Hook, Aurora, San Bernadino, Orlando, Tucson, Fort Hood, Binghamton, Dekalb, Omaha, Charleston, Honolulu, St. Paul, Dallas. The number of deaths by gunshot is in equal proportion to the increased sale of guns. It is overwhelming and tears at the heart of our nation. The utter inhumanity, not for some noble purpose, but to make money on death, tears at my heart. This is not what the authors of the Constitution had in mind when they penned the second amendment. This is not what God has in mind for we who have been created in the womb of God.

My “HIPPIE MOBILE?” – Signs of the Times on the back of my 2002 Escape

At a recent gathering of the separated/divorce support group at which I facilitate, instead of meeting at St. Wenceslaus, we thought it might be fun to meet instead at a local restaurant for a little social/lighter conversation. All members of the group had to do was tell me in advance they were coming so I could reserve a table or two. I would pay for the appetizers (the “horses duvers” as my children use to say), and they would pay for their drinks, with the caveat that if they were really hurting for money, I would cover their drinks. We had about 10 participants, with one of them coming late stating, “I knew this was the place, I looked for an Escape that had all the hippie causes on the back.” (see the picture above). One would think I was driving an old Volkswagen bus, with flower decals applied all over its metal surface. I found the analogy fascinating because at the times of the late 60’s early 70’s when the Hippie culture was perhaps having the greatest influence on pop culture and society, I was not necessarily a proponent. However, I have found that with the exception of “free love”, typified by Stephen Still’s catchy song, “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one your with”, and, the drug culture that accompanied some of the Hippie movement, which was very destructive to all concerned, the influence of the Hippies and most of what they were promoting was in the parlance of the time, “right on!”.

There was a Sally Field/James Garner movie from the 80’s entitled “Murphy’s Romance”. It was a nice, family film about a romance between a recently divorced 30 year old woman and a man in his early 60’s. Garner, played the older romantic lead, who was the proprietor of a small town Drug Store. He drove a Model A Ford, with a variety of bumper stickers supporting certain causes. His only rule about the car was to not “cover up his causes.” I suppose his influence from that movie rubbed off on me.

If you look at the “causes” I espouse on the back of my old 2002 Escape, you will find that while some, particularly those who have made political conservatism into a profane image of God, might think them “liberal” (insert sigh), the causes are all Gospel based. The Gospel is a document of progressive faith. It is neither politically conservative not is it politically liberal. The Gospel cannot be defined by either the Republicans nor the Democrats, nor the Libertarians or the Green Party. The Gospel may influence these political movements, but cannot be influenced in return by those same political movements. Let’s take a quick helicopter tour of what is on the back of my old 2002 Escape.

“Do small things with great love.” “Build Bridges Not Walls.” “An Ecological Peace Sign.” Mother Teresa of Calcutta authored the first, Pope Francis 1 said the second, and Pope Francis in his encyclical, “Laudato Si”, gave the theological underpinning of the third. All of these are derived from the words of Jesus in the Gospels. The whole concept of Original Sin is about constructing walls around ourselves, making the individual person, God. In order to break down the self-centeredness and exclusivity of the self, bridges must be built between people so that true community can exist. Jesus IS the bridge between God and humanity. Jesus embodies what Pope Francis stated. One can’t get more Truth than that. Mother Teresa’s saying encapsulates the great commandment of Jesus, the life of Jesus, and what John is teaching in his first letter. Being at peace with one another and especially at peace with the environment in which we live is totally based on scripture (see the first creation story in Genesis) and the teachings of Jesus.

“We were all immigrants once.” This is true statement not only of our ancestors who came to the United States, but of the Holy Family. Jesus and his mother and father were political refugees escaping the murderous tyranny of Herod the Great when they migrated from Palestine to Egypt. Jesus was a political refugee and an immigrant, very much one with many who came to the United States from similar political repression, persecution and danger. To turn a deaf ear to the crises and desperation of refuges from Syria, from Central and South America is contrary to the teaching of the Gospel. This is very biblical.

“Everyone does better when everyone does better.” “Love Thy Enemy implies not killing them.” “Our diversity is our strength.” The first is Jesus’ golden rule, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It is also the second part of the great commandment of Jesus, “love your neighbor as you love yourself.” The second is very evident in both Matthew and Luke’s Gospels. Jesus told the crowds that Moses said “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” But Jesus then said, “I give you a new law, love your enemy, pray for those who persecute you.” Loving one’s enemy implies NOT killing them. That was the rule of the early Christian Church. It is absolutely tragic and a sign of being unfaithful to the Gospel that Christians have turned a deaf ear to this law of Jesus. As to the third sign, the strength of the Church has always been in its diversity. Scripture teaches us that we are all made in the image and the likeness of God no matter what color our skin, our culture, our language, our nation, our sex. The separateness that the Tower of Babel came to represent is the antithesis of what God intended at Creation. Diversity is a divine virtue. Racial, cultural, sexual prejudice is a sin.

“When did helping the poor become a sin?” Odd that the mantra of the Republican Party, which purports to be Christian (at least the Democrats acknowledge they are not of any religion), is to persecute the poor (by limiting assistance to the poor by strict limits on unemployment insurance, restricting food stamps, attempts to repeal healthcare, dismantling of Medicade, Medicare, and social security, the list is endless) . In Matthew’s Gospel when Jesus describes the Last Judgment of humanity and divides the sheep from the goats, those who have helped the poor by feeding them, giving them something to drink, clothing them, giving them shelter, welcoming the immigrant, visiting the sick and the imprisoned, to these Heaven is promised. To the goats who closed their ears to the cries of the poor, they are condemned to Hell. Helping the poor is a Gospel mandate. So why has one political party made it mandate to take all help, all hope from the poor? It does not bode well for them at the Last Judgment.

So is this really a Hippie mobile, or is it rather a Gospel mobile? I say everything on the back of the car (with the exception of the Irish flag … my acknowledgment to my Irish ancestry, and the “I love big mutts and I cannot lie”, a sign of affection for our Boxerdore (Lab/Boxer mix mutt), Belle E Button, is Gospel based. If that is being a Hippie, then I guess I am a Hippie. However, I think that it states better that I am a disciple of Jesus who takes what Jesus taught VERY seriously.

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